Tuesday, April 13, 2010

well SOMEONE fails at computing. I posted my Homestuck review twice (don't blame me, blame internet) and then realized people commented on both. I don't want to delete lots of comments so i am just posting this silly explanation.

in the above image, Jade represents me and the robot represents the entire rest of the world

Posted by
Carl

24 comments:

I couldn't get back into it after the intermission, and even then I was losing interest. The Future Vagabonds and basically everything not about John, Rose, Dave, and Jade felt like pointless filler and even the main four were moving way too slow.

The best way I can think to describe it is that Problem Sleuth was like a well-made kid's cartoon. Silly, didn't always make a lot of sense, but had this right... something... to it that just made it fun for everyone. Meanwhile, Homestuck is more like an anime, trying to bring in a more serious and effective story (and succeeding at points) but ultimately just being filled with way too much obvious filler and too goddamn much talking.

I'm enjoying it, but not really as something funny. It is an interesting story to see unfold, and it is fun to see how he ties in some of the discussions in the forum threads.

My biggest gripe is that right now his scope is huge - all of the characters you mentioned, plus the guardians and now we've seen MC is tied in as well, all mixed with crazy time travel. It is hard to wrap your head around reading it as it comes out. In one sitting, I bet a lot more if it ties together easily.

I still read MSPA, and I'm still enjoying Homestuck - although I agree it's not as funny as Problem Sleuth and I do kind of wish he'd quit bringing in new characters all the gorram time. But nonetheless, it still features numerous funny moments - although I find it a difficult thing to link friends to: a lot of the humour depends on the context. What keeps me going is actually the scope it's taken - I'm kind of impressed that he's taken on something that's simultaneously completely absurd and actually an engaging story with genuinely cinematic moments. And some moments are genuinely touching (take Rose's conversation with her sprite, for example.)

I guess what Homestuck does for me is the opposite of xkcd - it tries to do several things (absurd humour, worldbuilding, characters you actually give a crap about) and succeeds, even if it goes about it in a long-winded fashion, largely through Andrew Hussie's dedication and the amount of effort he's putting into the whole thing. Could still go for more art, less pesterlogs, though.

I don't know HOW you could have such a critical eye towards xkcd and yet you like Achewood, a comic that consists of a bunch of furries sitting around either trying to talk "gangsta" (you can tell the artist so wishes he was black) or just being boring.

Like I said before, it's rather wrong to just say "it sucks" for something like this, because the reason you don't like it is entirely just an opinion: mainly, that you don't like it's serious story-focused tone. Had you said "I think it sucks", it would've been fine, but you didn't really.

Although I'd also wager to bet that you didn't actually realise yous is a purely subjective feeling because you actually asked "Do you lot like this because its funny or not?". Unlike Problem Sleuth, Homestuck is NOT humour-based, instead being more general and containing equal mixes of story, humour, characterisation, and wit.

"I don't know HOW you could have such a critical eye towards xkcd and yet you like Achewood, a comic that consists of a bunch of furries sitting around either trying to talk "gangsta" (you can tell the artist so wishes he was black) or just being boring."

Well... Its not unusual for an artist to work on a new project, or a very similar project but still different. MSPaintadventures is still very different from anything else we have and it makes it intriguing.

Intriguing yes, but funny, no. Its a complicated story and thats fine for me. You're right about Problem Sleuth not taking itself seriously and thats what really brought about the humor. I don't think Homestuck really has much of intent to be -as funny- so much as -more interesting.-

The problem we get is when we get a comic (or an artist) who wants to do something different but doesn't tell anyone its going to be different... or maybe never intended for it to be different and it just sort of happened along the way. We, the readers, are reading more off expectation rather then genuine quality. Does that make us bad people? Bad readers? No. Its natural and a good artist is able to pick up on this an adapt.

I should also to say that MSPaint is a comprehensive story and, like all stories, need to take pause to deliver serious moments of intense dialogue and flesh out problems. It looks like we're just now getting a real, tangible antagonist. The problem with this unlike most stories is that these "heights of conflict" don't take 10 pages in a book (or an afternoon of reading old PS archive episodes), it takes us a month or two to see how it unfolds.

That god damn frustrating. Carl, you and I are in the same boat here. PS was so epic because we wested days barreling through the archives and catching up just as the end happened. Now you and I are have to watch two years of material come out in the actual course of two years. That SUCKS.

Its sill awesome to me though. Why? Because MSPaint's year anniversary is on my birthday and all these epic videos that have and will come out on this day are like his gift to me.

The possibilities for user input are less, and that makes the story less likely to go off in a crazy tangent, but that's generally a good thing in my opinion. Let us, the readers, provide the quirks, let Andrew tell his story, and ergo Homestuck. Perhaps its not as zany, or as open-ended, but to compare this with video-games, a little structure is needed in the sandbox.

I think I'm one of the lone dissenters who didn't really love Problem Sleuth that much -- it might not have helped that I read it after it had ended. It was plenty of wild and crazy fun when it wanted to be, but the devotion to the "game" concept was at least as often frustrating as interesting, and there were a lot of weird tonal shifts. So for better or worse, I haven't read, and probably won't read, Homestuck (unless I'm convinced otherwise and have a lot of free time on my hands).

But I think the thing to keep in mind is that MSPA is not really like anything anybody else has done before. I mean, it has similarities to RPGs, of course, and to text adventure games, and comics, and to interactive traditions from advertising contests to improv comedy, but it's not really any of these things in any real way. So you're not reading some Platonic ideal with MSPA, you're watching something that's constantly mutating and changing. It reminds me a lot of Tim & Eric; their show doesn't make me laugh as often as I'd like it to, so I don't watch it religiously, but it's so startlingly unlike anything else that I find myself weirdly drawn to it anyway. MSPA, like T&E, shouldn't be expected to be perfect, or even always that good. And if you're finding yourself enjoying it less and less, you shouldn't have to look for a reason to like it. But maybe it's worth sticking with just to watch the freakish thing grow.

It turns out that the MSPA forums take Homestuck very seriously. Many of the early plot twists, particularly the introduction of WV, resulted in a lot of bitching. As the story developed, the speculation threads practically begged for more character to be developed. The mods had to explicitly ban role-playing the trolls after CG's first chatlog because enough people did it that it was getting obnoxious.

Homestuck is still good, but it is more directed to the day-by-day audience than Problem Sleuth was. There wasn't a fanbase to complain when Andrew sent the sleuth crew on side quests. There wasn't a fanbase writhe in speculation on how DMK's third form would be. Complexity is good for getting the forums thrilled, but it makes archive binges that much harder.

Fortunately, if you are looking for some light hearted adventures, the forum has a large number of fan adventures. Some are actually quite good and may help ease your nostalgia for Problem Sleuth.

I really like MSPA, I do. Carl's complaints are valid, I admit, but I'm enthralled with the world, the characters, the format, the music, and how it all comes together. I can't say I know where the plot is going or why so many characters are necessary, and I wish he wouldn't switch point of view so much. I'm the opposite of you, Carl; I wish I could read Homestuck all at once, at my own pace, instead of constantly waiting for a few pages of new content at a time. Better to lose eight days of July than hang on a thread for two years. But, I like it so much I can't help but read it as it comes out.

I didn't read Problem Sleuth -- and that must affect my opiniong on the matter --, but I'm liking Homestuck. An addendum, though: I'm not sure I'll still like it that much in the future.

Namely, yes, the different plot threads are becoming a mess. The Future Vagabonds make quite intriguing and even adorable filler(if not actual foreshadowing); the Trolls may turn out to be actually interesting characters, albeit certainly need some fleshing out; but the sudden apperance of the Future Dave and Rose was just something that threw my appreciation of the comic out of balance. As if there was a sudden realization in my mind that "I'm not sure I like where this is going to..."

Anyway, I'm curious about the cosmology and premise behind this mess, and I hope it's worth the occasional (or I hope so) feeling of confusion.

Part of the difference between Homestuck and Problem Sleuth maybe is that PS' digressions were so painful, and you had to just laugh at how maaaan will we never have that particular plot point resolved how much more involved can it get!?Whereas HS seems more...well what is the basic story anyway? It doesn't seem to have kicked off yet. There's still something too world-building prelude-y expository about it.

It's to do with the structure? PS revolved around overcoming (apparently) simple problems (escape your room; exit the building; etc.) whose suggested solutions kept being thwarted or subverted until the whole scenario became this hugely convoluted baroque monstrosity of a challenge.But HS doesn't have that same "here's what we need to do OBSTRUCTION LULZ". It just keeps setting up the pieces and then cutting to new elements whenever a development is going to happen, so it doesn't have the same feeling of genuine progression (albeit a cacklingly twisted progression at that) that PS had. HS just seems like it's perpetually *about* to kick off, but first it's gotta introduce just one more other thing before anything really happens.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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